Writing workshop with Nicola Morgan

One of the best things you can do for your writing self, if at all possible, is to attend a writing workshop or a conference. Not only do we benefit from the insight of professional people within publishing, but for that day, evening, or hour, we live as writers – we are writers, and everyone around us writes, and these are our people, and this is our industry.

For me, both aspects are equally important. Writers work in isolation – we physically tuck ourselves away to write, and then mentally retreat from real life into the fantasy world of words. It can be hard to keep the flame alive, especially for unpublished folk who maybe don’t have anyone else cheerleading for them – time and again you have to speak against the doubting voice in your head, and it can be hard to convince yourself ‘I am a writer; I will be an author’, especially if the majority of your day is spent being someone else entirely.

Workshops are fab as they reaffirm our ambitions and aspirations. They are even nicer when they are run by someone like Nicola Morgan - a successful published author who clearly knows her stuff and delivers considered advice in a thoroughly engaging way. Readers of her blog, Help! I Need a Publisher!, will know that she holds the number one google ranking for ‘Crabbit Old Bat’, a moniker bestowed because of her honest forthright opinions on writing. What I've also discovered is that self-confessed crabbit old bats are also warm, witty, and incredibly nice people.

I was attending the workshop with Vikki, the writer behind Back to the Castle (and musician / costume maker extraordinaire), and so caught the 4.50 from Paddington up to Oxford. Being a huge Agatha Christie fan I was very tickled to get this train, although I’m happy to report there was a distinct lack of murders.

After a whistle-stop tour of the centre of Oxford, cunningly planned to incorporate a stop for delicious cake, we descended on Blackwell’s lovely bookshop. There was a good sized crowd of people with notebooks already seated as we scurried into place, and a show of hands revealed that we were nearly all fiction writers, with a small scattering of non-fiction amongst our number. Nicola’s talk was everything I was expecting but with added sparkle – she brought characters with her to demonstrate the numerous ways writers can fall into pitfalls, such as the dramatic woman in love with her own prose, the elderly lady who wants to write for children as ‘it’s easy’. This was a really clever and fun way to highlight key points from her presentation.

The part of the workshop I was most looking forward to was writing the pitch paragraph. This is the paragraph that appears in your covering letter – the bit that condenses your novel, the hook that sells your story. I am currently at this stage and so need all the help I can get! We’d been nicely led to this crucial moment - Nicola imbibing us with knowledge, and the red wine served at the interval perhaps giving a bit of Dutch courage. All I know is that for the first time I really seemed to get it – a paragraph fell from my pen onto my notebook, and I really, really like it. It needs a bit more work but the bones are there now, which is brilliant. Not only that, but all attendees got a free copy of Nicola’s e-book, Write A Great Synopsis, which I am halfway through reading and heartily recommend already.

And the best way to end such a magical evening? A glass of wine with friends in a lovely high-ceilinged Art Deco bar. Cheers to Oxford, Blackwell’s, Nicola Morgan, and Vikki! I now have some writing to do. *grins*

Synopsis secrets

You may have guessed from my last post that I find conjuring a good synopsis out of blank paper rather tricky. But, now the painful part is over and I have finished howling at the moon, I thought I’d share some secrets that worked for me.

(When I say worked, only time will tell of course.)

1. Make a list of yucky things that seem preferable to writing a synopsis. Decide that writing a synopsis is infinitely better than, say, licking cat vomit.
   
2. Read each chapter of your novel and write one paragraph describing the main events. I did this in long-hand and came up with three or four pages of scribble. (Scribble being my default best handwriting.)
   
3. Type this up and edit where necessary.
   
4. Read it over. Does your synopsis mention:
   - Main characters (only the protagonists that move the story forward are needed)
   - Setting, including year
   - Main plot and sub-plot
   - The ending (very important. Don’t be coy!)
   
5. Take out anything superfluous  - think plot; think the simplest terms for someone else to understand that plot
   
6. Make sure the synopsis tone of voice reflects the novel tone of voice
   
7. Edit, edit, edit! Edit until you’re sick! Edit some more!
   
8. Read it aloud. Tweak if needed.
   
9. And breathe...

As for practicalities – unless the agency / publisher you are submitting to have specific guidelines (and most do), I use Times New Roman, point size 11, single-spaced typing. I might increase the font size to 12 when actually sending it out - cheers Giles! (see comments). I wouldn’t go over two pages, perhaps three at a push. Think of it as a CV – everyone has a CV but most companies don’t want you to send it in as they have their own forms. So say some agencies want a one-page synopsis - if you have something you are happy with you'll be able to prune it to what's needed.

And the best thing about writing a synopsis?

It really, really helps your novel. At least, it did for me. I started working on my synopsis earlier this year, and it identified a problem with my novel. Each time I began the synopsis I started it at a certain point - but this wasn't the point where my novel started. This discrepancy revealed a lurking fear that I'd started my novel in the wrong place - buried the poor thing in back story - and finally this set me on the path of the gigantic rewrite.

So, if things work out, I'll have to shake that synopsis by the hand and buy it a drink. It probably won't stop me writing lists about awful things I'd rather do than write one, but at least now I understand. A synopsis is your novel's best friend.

Things I would rather do than write a synopsis

1.      Lick cat vomit

2.      Drink a roadside puddle

3.      Eat whatever’s lurking at the back of the office fridge

4.      Ride a rail replacement bus through London at the weekend holding a bag of thawing fish

5.      Write a 20-page report on the varying nuances of beige, complete with chemistry compound tied in to theories of depression

6.      Get pooped on by a pigeon with chronic diarrhoea

7.      Wear pale trousers, sit on chocolate, and walk around all day oblivious of suspicious stain

8.      De-clog a railway station toilet with my bare hands

9.      Root around scary storage centres on my own at night for obscure pieces of stage equipment

10.  Watch daytime chat show programmes on a continual loop until my mind bleeds out of my nose

11.  Sit a three-hour exam on Advanced Maths

12.  Enter the Guinness World Record cracker eating contest

13.  Drop and smash a priceless antique in a shop with a sign that says ‘Nice to see, Lovely to hold, If you break it, Consider it sold’

14.  Sew my fingers together and then pull the thread out very, very slowly

15.  Go mud larking in bare feet along the Thames in central London

16.  Ask the most gorgeous man in the world on a date

17.  Walk around all day in towering heels

18.  Go for colonic irrigation

19.  Wear butt-skimming hot-pants to a work conference

20.  Eat a raw onion as if it’s an apple

I have done #9, #14 and #17. As for #16... maybe one day.  *grins*

Just to clarify  #14. It was a textiles lesson at school. I was thirteen and bored. We were supposed to be sewing something dull and one of the boys instead sewed the thread through the pads of his fingers and was trying to gross us out. He dared one of us to do it. I took him up on the challenge and realised it didn't really hurt if you used shallow stitches; it just looked awful and freaked out the teacher. Then to get the thread out you pulled it slowly from one side, trying not to break the skin - and this felt really weird and icky. It wasn't a clever thing to do as it can make your fingers very sore, so please don't try it! Not that you would, of course. You have brains.

Writing a synopsis...

Is bloody tricky! I had one already written (which was a redraft of another, which was a condensed version of an alternative, which was laid over the original, which was pants) and now I am rewriting it again anyway.

A lot happens in books, doesn’t it? Pages and pages of derring-do, and marvellous things, and tragic twists, and comedy corners. And all that down to a little bitty thing that says ‘please oh please for the love of God and small kittens request the rest of me!’

If I smoked I’d be outside stalking about like Groucho Marx at this point. As it is I nervously eat Milky Way bars (look – to me they are like diet chocolate) and just know my backside has grown chair-shaped, complete with handles. This is what this synopsis is doing to me. And does it care? Does it ever.

Although it is getting there, slow but sure. I can almost glimpse the synopsis I want it to be. I think the trick is not to explain but to feel the story, the flow of the story. Who are the characters? Where’s the drama? What’s the tension? How does it conclude?

So this is what I am doing tonight. I can stay another hour at work (am using lovely office computer after-hours) without colleagues thinking I am zealously keen to the point of insanity. And then I can ponder my words on the long sweaty jolt home (nice) and restart again that side.

Have you written a synopsis? Any tips to share?

Synopsis

I woke up this morning and for some reason the structure of the synopsis for the novel was in my head, and so I lay there for a while planning it, thinking ooo – this sounds good! And then I dashed up to scrabble about for a pen and paper, and by the time I got it written down I couldn’t quite remember the order of words I wanted. Still, at least it is a start, and something for me to worry at like a dog with a bone throughout the week.

I’ve made a point of mentioning the novel a few times here and there at social occasions over the last couple of weeks, mainly because the first question anyone asks is ‘oh right, so what’s it about?’. This means I have an approximate two minute window of interest to explain my whole novel using the most exciting yet briefest explanation possible, great preparation for writing the synopsis and seeing what other people spark with from my description.

The quickest explanation would be that it is a dark comedy of errors set in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s, with brief forays into contemporary times. People seem to like the sound of this so far, although I am sure pulling a face in my company and saying 'that sounds a bit shite' would have been seen as an appalling faux pas, so perhaps not the best way to judge reactions. However, it is really good practice for me to talk about it - makes it all the more real, and that is very exciting! Oh one day…

But in the meantime – work. I have recklessly done nothing for work tomorrow – I should have laid out clothes, made lunch, washed hair – all these sort of things, yet nope – tonight has been a night off. This means tomorrow morning will be a right arse and I’ll only have my sorry self to blame – ah well. Oh no – just remembered I have to queue up for my weekly travel card too – if you see a wild-eyed girl clutching an apple / random stick of celery wearing one trainer / one boot on the tube tomorrow morning I have the bad feeling it may well be me.